After the effects of the second soul gem’s energy release ended, Danny swallowed his third crystal of the day and braced for the impact that was bound to come. And come it did.

It started slowly like the other two times – a minor itch followed by a sense of strange relief over a need or issue he wasn’t normally aware of – however, as the seconds went by, the discomfort became more and more unbearable, to the point that Danny was already uncontrollably squirming on the leather couch.

The feeling of relief was still there, but it was now accompanied by a massive burning pain.

The burning feeling was reminiscent of the pain caused by a common heartburn, only cranked up to massive levels.

In addition to that, instead of the limited area of the body that such a common health problem like an acid reflux would normally affect – namely the chest and throat sections of the body –, this pain that Danny was now feeling spread everywhere.

Danny felt the burning on his whole body, even on the most unusual and uncomfortable of places. Behind the eyes, inside his nose, on the tip of his fingers. No place was safe from the pain.

Fortunately, Danny knew that the torture was bound to pass eventually as it did the previous times. Therefore, he merely gritted his teeth and endured the torment the best way he could until the suffering brought upon by the released energies of his third crystal was eventually over.

After some time transpired, Danny slowly sat up and cleared up the sweat that had accumulated on his forehead. He was completely drenched to be honest, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that right now.

The effects of the third soul gem lasted for pretty much the same amount of time as the first two as far as Danny could tell. There were only some minor differences in duration according to his wristwatch, so he chalked it up to discrepancies in the amount of energy contained in each individual soul gem.

After all, they could not hold the exact same amount of energy, right? There had to be some small individual differences here and there, as no two crystals were exactly the same, even if such difference ended up being negligible when looking at it in larger numbers.

The effects themselves, however, changed drastically from one dosage to the next.

The first one was merely uncomfortable. The second one hurt a little bit. The third one though, was straight up tortuous. The scaling of the pain wasn’t linear, but exponential instead.

Danny could take it though. He was no stranger to suffering after all. His whole body was covered in scars, memories of his past run-ins with the demon hidden by the black ink of his tattoos. He was well accustomed to pain already.

Humans were very adaptable creatures in the end. Many would be surprised at how much of a beating they can take before truly and utterly breaking.

After a lifetime of hurt and agony, Danny had developed a lot of resistance over both physical and mental pain, which allowed him to confidently take on the torment brought upon by the three sequential bursts of energy inside him.

The fourth one would be another story altogether however. Even Danny, with all his experience in enduring hardship, dreaded the amount of pain he would be in if he was crazy enough to try eating another crystal straight away.

If the exponential growth in intensity kept its increasing pace, it would be a wonder if Danny would be able to even survive another attempt, to say nothing about keeping conscious during the process.

To keep pressing on under those circumstances would be the height of folly.

There were still many tests and experiments he would have to run on the following days in order to better understand his and the crystals’ limits, while also coming up with an appropriate and optimized training schedule – if eating crystals like pills could even be called that –, but this would have to do for now.

Danny didn’t know how long he should wait before he could start digging into his soul gem reserves again, but he felt like he could at the very least try again after another twenty-four hours.

Danny figured that in the worst-case scenario, he would have to endure another blast of burning pain for his impatience and he was okay with that.

Even though it would probably be safer to start with a larger delay in-between his sessions and progressively shorten the gap in order to find out the most efficient way to eat the crystals without any of those undesirable side-effects, Danny didn’t want to waste too much time.

Given that humanity was definitely the underdog in this dispute between foreign invaders for the subjugation of Earth, he had to take some chances here and there to improve his chances. Danny was fine with taking a few calculated risks so long as they had decent enough returns.

After putting his clothes back up, and donning all his gear, Danny did some stretches and a few light indoor exercises to make sure everything was in order and that there weren’t any hidden injuries resulting from his self-inflicted experiments.

Seeing that nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and that he felt physically fine overall, Danny checked if he had everything he needed for the trip one last time, before finally heading out of the house and into the open arms of this dangerous new world.

Lara hugged her knees, burying her face in them while sitting on the ground floor of her house. Muffled sounds of crying could be heard coming from her general direction if one stood close enough.

“Dad… uncle John… where are you?” Lara voiced the question that kept her anxious and worried every waking hour during the last couple of weeks.

She wondered how everything had gone so horribly wrong. Everything seemed to be going so well in her life just a few weeks past, but oh boy, how fast things can change.

Lara grew up on her father’s ranch and lived on their property most of her life. Farming and tending to animals, that was what she knew and what her lot in life would be if she had it her father’s way. But she wasn’t complaining.

Other people might resent a lifestyle and career choice that was decided for them from the get go like this, before they could even think for themselves, but not Lara.

Lara was content with such a future. She drew from it a sense of purpose, tradition and family value that she felt she could not find anywhere else. She did not crave to see the outside world, or become some sort of corporate career city woman like someone else might if placed in her position.

She was happy tending to the ducks and other animals of their ranch, while also helping her Pa around the place however she could.

She had lost her mother very early during her childhood. Delivery complications arose when her mother tried to bring her little brother to the world, claiming both their lives.

It was not meant to be. At least that was what her uncle John told her every time they spoke about it.

Her father was devastated by the loss. She did not remember much of the period, given that she was just about four years-old at the time – so she could hardly be faulted for the hazy memory –, but she could still recall how scared she felt at the time and how much she missed her father’s throaty laughter that she could hear from anywhere in the house, no matter the distance.

After her mother’s passing, it took her dad a long, long time to go back to joking and smiling. His usual playful character obscured by grief and the sense of loss. Uncle John still claimed that he never truly went back to being the same man, though Lara couldn’t say for sure given how little she recalled of that period.

Anyways, she loved her father dearly. Even with all his burdens, her Pa had never been nothing but good to her, so how could she leave him behind all alone when they only had one another?

If leaving in search of a different life meant leaving her dad by himself in their house, with no one to look after him or keep him company, then it was a life she wanted nothing to do with.

They did have uncle John that they could count on as well for companionship as well, but it was not the same thing. No matter how much they cared about one another, uncle John had his own family to look after.

Even if he did not live that far away and had been always been there for them, Lara still wasn’t comfortable leaving long-term if there was no one else to keep company to her dad on a more permanent basis. She brought up the idea of him remarrying many times already, but he would have none of it.

Her dad always said that the only love he had left was for her and his brother – uncle John – so she could only helplessly accept his decision, even if she felt that he could still find love in another marriage, or perhaps a sense of kinship if not true love. Maybe someone that shared his experiences like that widow aunty Charlotte tried to introduce him one time would be a good match.

Anyway, that wasn’t happening anytime soon, so she also would be staying.

To be fair, she wasn’t even sure she would ever want to leave in the first place. The idea of travelling the world and going to college was nice and all – and in some ways expected of her by her peers giver her good grades and serious personality –, but she enjoyed her current life way too much to justify the change. Was it even worth it?

Either way, all of that was entirely hypothetical given that she wouldn’t be leaving her father all alone. Family was important and family came first. At least, that was how Lara viewed things.

“Family is important huh?” Lara lifted her face, revealing the tears streaks that marred her pretty face.

Lara couldn’t help but wish it wasn’t so at the moment, after all it was because of family that her father had left with uncle John, leaving her all alone in this house, promising it wouldn’t take them more than a couple days to return.

“Lies.” She thought somberly.

That was two weeks ago and they were supposed to be back for many days by now.

Her anxiety and pessimism had taken complete control of her addled mind and whispered to her the worst possible scenarios she could imagine as the ultimate truths.

She tried to stay positive through it all, but as one day became two, two days became four, and the days finally became two whole weeks, Lara had started to lose hope to ever see her family again.